


Morning Brings New Light

by actualPrincess



Series: Tales from The Apartment [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Apartment AU, Collegestuck, F/M, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied dub con, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 23:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5435072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualPrincess/pseuds/actualPrincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of a house party, the gang finds themselves reveling in the activities of the night before. At least, most of them are.</p>
<p>In which Dirk Strider sleeps with his best friend, and tries to keep himself together afterwords.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morning Brings New Light

Your name is Dirk Strider, and you are more awake than you have been any of your previous 20 years of life. You glance, wide eyed at the too familiar figure next to you, Jake. You lift the covers slowly, so as not to wake up your best friend, and confirm your suspicions. His back is to you, but Jake’s bare ass is really all you need to see to know he’s just as naked as you are. There are scratches down his back, and you can see the edges of hickeys creeping over his shoulders and around his neck.

You feel sick. You didn’t mean for this to happen, can barely remember last night and doubt Jake was anything less than blackout drunk as well. At least what you could remember of the party had been fun. You carefully slip out of bed, thanking whatever powers there are that your brother taught you how to sneak, and quickly pull on your clothes. Which you find scattered near Jake’s bed, another reminder of your breach of Jake’s trust.

Dressed, you slide open the window, praying it doesn’t stick or squeak as you’re trying to make your escape. Casting the occasional glance at Jake, heart nearly stopping as he rolls over, and letting out a breath when he stays asleep.

The window’s open and you flashstep out of the room, onto the fire escape, shutting the window quietly behind you. You back away from the room, taking a shaky breath and running your hands through your hair. You need a shower, wash away the sweat and guilt and sin. If you believed in God you’d go to confession or something. It’s not like you don’t feel the need to anyway. The cool breeze of the morning brings you out of your thoughts, and you wrap your arms around yourself with a shiver. A few steps over the metal grating brings you to your own window, which you nearly throw open, dropping inside light as a cat. You turn on the lights, glad you locked the door last night before the party. There are half finished robotics projects and commissions sitting out on your work table, and you’d rather not have drunks poking around them.

You grab your shower bag and a towel, checking the time. It’s 9:00am, you slept in an hour later than usual. Still too early for anyone besides you and Jane to be up after a party. You’re going to have to find some concealer, you grab a fresh change of clothes, before poking your head out the door.

The hallway is dark, there’s no smell from the kitchen, meaning Jane is in her room. There are a few people crashed in the living room from last night. You recognize most of them from the floors below. Flashstep to the bathroom across the hall, and you’re in the clear, finally. You catch yourself in the mirror on your way to one of the shower stalls. You glance towards the door, and quickly strip off your shirt. You’re covered in bruises and bites. Not too dark, they should go away in a day or so, but the thought does nothing to comfort you. In fact the sight makes you want to throw up.

Because you’re proud of yourself. In some twisted corner of your mind, you’re actually proud that you had sex with Jake English, drunk or not. Jake probably didn’t even know what was happening, and you can’t even be bothered to stick around and try to fix this. You don’t want to sit in bed with him and pretend this will turn out well. Let Jake think his one night stand was some chick who left early in the morning, because that’s less painful than sleeping with your best male friend. You should have sprayed some perfume in his room or something, make it more convincing.

You scowl at the mirror, you can’t look at yourself anymore. You make your way to the shower and yank open the door, setting your stuff on the hooks and trying to stop your mind from running. You had to get your best friend drunk for him to sleep with you. The thought makes your stomach lurch and you’re over a toilet, faster than you thought possible, coughing up bile. Your mouth tastes as disgusting as you feel. Jake wouldn’t do anything he hadn’t consented to, you tell yourself, he’s strong enough to handle himself. It’s barely comforting, and you flush the toilet, standing on shaky legs. Your body feels sore for more than one reason, and you make your way back to the shower. Stripping down quickly and turning the faucet to scalding, standing under the spray as it heats up, watching the water roll off of you down the drain.

You press your forehead against the cool tile under the faucet, one of your hands covering your mouth. You haven’t thrown up since middle school, not even with the worst hangovers. You refuse to have a breakdown in the shower, but your mind is split into eighteen separate pieces all whirring at top speed to let you know, you’re a piece of shit: for lusting after your friend for so long, for getting drunk, for moving into this shared apartment, for not remembering any of last night. You tilt your head back to catch the water in your mouth, spitting it down the drain to rinse the taste of bile out of your mouth.

As much as you need one of your legendary infinite showers right now, you also know you have a lot to do before anyone else is awake. You wish you’d followed Roxy’s advice and just bought your own concealer, just in case, because you don’t want to face anyone right now. You wash your hair quickly and scrub down. You can feel the brush of his fingertips in the cooler air being swirled around the shower, and you crank the heat up further to kill it. It hurts. You want it to hurt, you want to feel something other than numbing shame. You want it to hurt, so you can feel how Jake will if he ever finds out about this.

You turn off the shower, looking less like the piece of shit you know you are. You throw on the fresh change of clothes, after towelling off barely enough. You drape the towel over your head and grab all your shit to dump in your room before going to find one of the girls. No one has come in, it must still be too early. People don’t usually get up before 11 on saturdays after parties. 

You leave the shower and leave the bathroom, opening the door to your room just enough to drop your stuff on the floor before walking to Jane’s room. She should be in there, you still can’t smell anything in the kitchen. Not to mention everyone in the living room is still out cold. You knock lightly on her door, hearing a chair being pushed back and light steps to the door before it’s opened.

“Dirk! I’m sorry I didn’t get you up it’s just-” You push past her into the room, drying your hair off with the towel as she closes the door. “No no, please come in.”

“I need a favor.” You say, voice muffled by the towel. Jane rolls her eyes.

“I’m not cutting your rent, you can afford-” You drop the towel off your head and raise one eyebrow above your shades. “Oh Dirk.” She says, her voice much softer now as she looks over your neck.

“I just need some concealer.”

“Dirk you didn’t.” She knows. She knows what you did. You wouldn’t be asking about this otherwise.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She nods, going over to her dresser and pulling out her makeup. She moves her chair gesturing for you to sit down, which you do.

“Does he…?” She trails off holding different skin colored bottles to your neck to match the color. You shake your head.

“He’s still asleep, I left, I couldn’t…”

“Face him?” She finishes for you, opening one of the containers and starting to dab it on the bruises. 

“I’m sorry.” You know she has feelings for him too, or did at one point.

“No need.” She says with a sigh, tilting your head to reach another bruise. “I let that one go long ago, I’m surprised you managed to hold on.”

You smile slightly, more out of pity for yourself than any sort of reaction to Jane’s half joke. You feel like a kid. Not in the good way, with all the happy bubbly feelings that Roxy describes. This is all the patronizing looks when a child does something wrong, the dark clouds when you’re picked last.

“Me too.”

“I should have intervened last night.” She says, moving to the other side of you. You tilt your head without prompting.

“You saw what went down. What- I didn’t…”

“No you didn’t. Don’t go down that path with me Dirk Strider, you aren’t going there alright?” She says sternly, resting a hand on your shoulder comfortingly. You let out a breath, closing your eyes.

“Good, good.”

“You were both pretty gone. Jake had been flirting with this girl all evening, I saw them talking occasionally on my rounds. She looked a bit like you, so I can see how he… made the mistake.” Your breath catches in your throat. That’s what it had been, a mistake. That’s what you were. Jane smacks the back of your head. “Stop it. She left, Jake didn’t notice, he spotted you and must have dragged you off. I thought it was just somewhere to talk, but I suppose it was the bedroom.”

“It was. Went out through the window.”

“Your door was locked.”

“Didn’t remember at the time, but yeah.”

She laughs, tugging your collar down to dab concealer on the lower marks. “Of course you did. Do you have a cover story for last night?”

“Spent the night with you.”

“Why Mister Strider, I’m flattered.” She smiles, releasing your shirt and capping the bottle. You check yourself in the mirror, Jane did a good job, you’re neck looks mark free. “Unfortunately, I don’t think it will be very believable.”

“I don’t know, got a thing for brunets. I think it could work.” You smile at her, a genuine one. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome dear.” She bends over and presses a kiss to your forehead. You suddenly feel infinitely better. “Come by tomorrow if you need more.” 

“Yeah, I will. ‘Less we got a party tonight, in which case I’ll make something up.” You say, standing up from the chair.

“Dave wants to test out a new kit he bought, so we might be. Check with Roxy.”

“Can do.” You touch your right index and pointer finger to your temple, flipping them out in a mock salute to Jane before standing up and leaving the room.

“Don’t beat yourself up too much Dirk!” She calls after you, as you close the door. You still have your towel clutched in your hand, and your fingers wrap around it tighter as you stare at Jake’s closed door. You hear a door open at the end of the hall, and you look over to see some guy in boxers stumble out of Jade’s room. He blinks at you.

“Bathroom?” He asks, his voice is hoarse, you note.

“End of the hall, right before the living room.” You point towards the door, you don’t know why this guy is asking you. You’re pretty sure he’s been at one of your parties before. Not to mention the bathroom has a sign on it.

“Thanks.” He says, walking past you to the bathroom. You look back at Jade’s room with interest, you’ll have to ask her when she’s actually awake. You watch the guy’s retreating figure: messy dark hair, dark brown skin, a barrage of scratches down his back and over his hips. Jade’s probably taller than him. Jake isn’t the only Harley-English who got lucky last night.

You close your eyes, taking a deep breath. Reminding yourself, Jake didn’t get lucky, he made a mistake. You open your eyes and head to the kitchen to start the coffee, rousing a few people from the couch. You kick one of the guys you recognize to wake him up, he’s in one of the robotics classes you TA. Then shake the shoulder of the girl he’s cuddling, you see them together a lot so you’re unconcerned. She hisses at you and snuggles closer to the guy. You roll your eyes and start waking up other people, before going to the kitchen to check the coffee pot. 

No one put it on last night because of the party, so you go about setting it up. Luckily you aren’t out of coffee grounds. Jane joins you in the kitchen a few minutes later, and starts making hangover food. Pretty soon you’re both joined by robotics guy and hissy girl, who want to help out as the apartment starts to fill with the smell of breakfast.

The girl, who Jane has called Nepeta at least twice and kitten at least once, is much better helping around the kitchen than her friend. You think his name is Equius, you remember him because his handwriting is surprisingly neat. He’s not as helpful, keeps breaking things, Nepeta quickly shoos him out of the kitchen with a glass of milk. 

You look up, hearing one of the doors in the hall open, Dave stumbles out of his own room. Weird. He drags his ass to the bathroom and comes out a minute later to sit down at the counter separating the kitchen and the living room. He rests his forehead against the cool stone and groans. Jane pats his back and sets a glass of apple juice by his head. Dave mumbles a thanks but doesn’t look up. You look back at the hallway in time to catch a couple leave Dave’s room and hastily exit the apartment. You raise you eyebrows and look at Jane, who looks back at you with a similar expression. You didn’t even know Dave had a bed in there.

The guy who asked about the bathroom finally leaves it, and goes back to Jade’s room. The door closing firmly behind him. Jane spots him and smacks your arm, looking at you questioningly. You shrug, you don’t know what Jade does or who Jade does, but you know she can take care of herself.

Jake is out of his room almost as soon as Jade’s door closes, and your heart nearly stops. He’s slipped on pyjama pants, which you wouldn’t call an improvement any day but today. He yawns and stretches his arms above his head, you can almost hear the familiar pop of his joints. Jane puts her hand on your arm. Jake turns his head towards the front door before heading to the restroom.

“Where is Egbert, I need to recharge.” Dave grumbles tilting his head on the counter and bringing the apple juice closer to himself.

“Just drink your juice Dave, John will be awake soon enough.” Jane says, placing a cup of coffee in your hand. You start running through ways you could repay Jane for just being absolutely stellar as you take a grateful drink of the dark liquid.

“Jane, I love you, but I am too sore right now to be patient.” You grimace, smacking Dave’s head.

“No one wants to hear about your sexlife bro, save it for when I’m out of the room.” Dave flips you off but doesn’t say anything. It’s a little amazing Dave is up before John, but if the couple that left is any indicator, he wanted out of there as well.

John and Roxy are out of their respective rooms looking chipper. Damn them and their unnatural ability to not be hungover. Even though you know for a fact Roxy never drinks enough for that anymore, she’d had one drink all night last night and it was mainly water. John was some sort of superman though. They both breeze past the bathroom and settle on either side of Dave at the counter.

“Morning!” Roxy says cheerfully, Jane sets a cup of coffee in front of her as Dave flops over onto John.

“Dave seriously?” John sighs, pulling Dave off his lap and leaning him more comfortably against his shoulder.

“You would not believe the night I had Egbutter.” You roll your eyes and turn back to the kitchen, grabbing a potholder and pulling a pan of bacon and sausage out of the oven.

“You slept in your room, so I think it’s already past believable.” John says, and you hear Dave grunt in response.

“Nah, man, so this chick and her boyfriend-” You decide against eavesdropping for the moment and switch your hearing to Jane and Roxy. 

“So he’s comin’ out the bathroom, his foot’s caught in a bucket and he’s got the most confused look on his face.” Roxy says. You start taking food off the tray and setting it on a conveniently placed series of plates. The Nepeta chick seems to be on pancake duty.

“Where’d he get the bucket?” Jane asks, you hear a rustle of fabric as she leans against the counter.

“No clue. Anyway, he’s all confused right? And I say ‘hey man, what’s up?’ and he goes ‘I think I just got out of a cockfight-’” Jane gasps, “‘but it’s ok, because they gave me this cake’ and he pulls this fuckin’ piece of cake outta nowhere!”

“No!” Jane gasps.

“Right?! So I look at him, and he looks at me, and I look and him, and he like slowly offers me the cake, and I’m like ‘dude go home’ and he just shrugs and tells me he’s good. So he goes back to the party and I’m like ‘fuck now I gotta break up a fucking bathroom fight club’. I walk into the bathroom and see this ring of people and Rosey has set up a bettin’ table on one o’ the stalls.” You look over to see Roxy excitedly bouncing in her chair, Jane has a rather fond smile.

“What’s the fight?”

“I’m gettin’ to it! Hold your horses! So I bust in and Rose gives me this looks like what-are-you-gonna-do, and I gotta get into the circle and figure out what’s going on. I get past this wall of people, and Jade-fucking-Harley, is sittin’ there arm wrestlin’ people.” You hear Jane laugh.

“Really?”

“Cross my heart Janey cakes. I broke the whole thing up, but she and Rose made a nice bit of money from the looks of it.” You didn’t even know that many people could fit into the bathroom. You guess that explains a few things. Like where a third of the party disappeared to last night. You decide to listen to Nepeta and Equius, they probably have something interesting to talk about.

“...pawsibly the worst decision of his life. He didn’t even know what hit him. Can you guess what hit him Equius?”

“Nepeta please…”

“It was me. I hit him. Decked him right in the face. So he hauls himself up and goes, ‘wait wait I’m a friend of your sister’ so I said ‘oh, meu should have told me’ and he’s like ‘yeah yeah the cat puns are real cute kitten’ and i cut him off with ‘no muelin should have told me you were a bag of dicks’...”

“Nepeta really! That language is quite enough.”

“Then I did a sweet vault over the couch, and nearly won an arm wrestling match against this girl Jade. All and all a pretty normal night, how about mew Equius?”

“I spoke with Ms. Lalonde at length about coding and robotic cats, as she was also not partaking in alcoholic beverages.”

“Aw that’s no fun! Don’t be such a sweaty stick in the mud!” You chuckle a little despite yourself. You like this girl, she’s welcome in the apartment any time, and it’s nice that Roxy found someone to talk to last night when she wasn’t making rounds. You set a plate of breakfast meat in front of Dave and John.

“So yeah, it turns out they were both pretty dominant and were just looking for someone they could boss around at the same time.” Dave finishes. John is staring at him in shock. You wonder what weird sexual things Dave just explained to him, poor guy.

“Sounds to me like you were a bottom bitch last night.” You say, getting their attention.

“Dude don’t say it like that. I was not.” Dave protests, grabbing a stick of bacon.

“You are nearly every other time, what made last night different?”

“Shut up.” Dave mumbles, chewing his food angrily.

“Can we talk about something else, I’m too ace for this.” John chimes in.

“You’re right John I should have known you didn’t want to hear about how massive my dick game was.” John laughs, shoving Dave’s shoulder. Dave laughs too, he looks at John the same way you used to look at Jake. It weird seeing it from the outside.

“Gross dude, stop.” John says, still laughing.

You set another plate in front of Roxy and Jane.

“Really? Do you think she knows?” Roxy gasps, Jane shakes her head.

“There’s no way, he doesn’t have his name on his profile. I only guessed because I overheard him talking to his friend about it.” Jane says. You wonder who they’re talking about, before remembering you don’t care. You turn back to the counter to grab the other plates and see Nepeta and Equius leaving with them, hopefully to distribute them to the other people in the apartment. There’s the scraping of the barstool and you’re already pulling down a mug to fill with coffee.

“Cream and sugar?” You say, pouring the cup.

“Dirk you of all people should know how I take my coffee.” Jake’s voice makes you nearly burn your hand. Shit, you’d forgotten he was up.

“Right, sorry bro. Didn’t recognize you without your elephant footsteps.” You set the mug in front of him, pouring milk in with the coffee.

“I don’t think my footsteps are that heavy.” He pouts, picking up the cup, and blowing on it before taking a sip. 

“They aren’t, I can just usually hear you coming. What’s up with you this morning, you’re not your usual cheery self.”

“Did you see a blond woman leave the apartment this morning?” He asks. That feels a bit like a slap in the face, you don’t even flinch.

“I saw some people leave Dave’s room, but no one from yours, sorry bro.”

“Quite alright, I’d just thought we’d really hit it off last night. This is the first time someone’s run off on me without breakfast at least, and I’d wanted her number.” God that’s right, Jake had had a perfect streak going. Well, you supposed it was still going, seeing as he had both your number and you sort of had to stay for breakfast. You did live here after all.

“Sucks man, maybe next time.” He shrugs a bit, but offers you an English Smile™.

“I suppose you’re right as usual mate. How did your night go?”

“Oh you know.” You shrug. “I talked to a guy for awhile, but he wasn’t interested so I spent the night alone in my room.”

**Author's Note:**

> Good thing this isn't the worst thing I'm going to put Dirk through dealing with. Someday I'll write about one of the apartment's legendary house parties, but today is not that day.
> 
> Questions, comments, just want to say hi? Follow me at maintaining-sanity.tumblr.com


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